halloween halls

tuesday night at garrets school they had their annual "halloween halls". it was really fun an the kids had a blast getting dressed up and getting some candy pre-halloween. the school decorated the halls all up, turned off the lights, the teachers all dressed up and then welcomed the students and their families to come and trick r treat the halls. it was fun to see garrets teacher and the other kids dressed up. everyone loved the idea of the butterfly and the butterfly catcher.

pumpkin carving and smores...

carving pumpkins is one of my best memories as a kid, so when it comes time for us to carve pumpkins with our kids I LOVE IT! tonight we had some friends come over with their pumpkins and we ate pizza, carved pumpkins and then made smores. it was a really fun night.... brenna is now walking everywhere! cant believe how quick they pick it up once they take those first few steps.

Brenna's Party

wow, what a fun day we had yesterday. it had rained all day friday so we prayed really hard that the day would be nice on saturday. we had planned on having the party outside, playing with chalk, bubbles, riding bikes, cooking smores, enjoying the fall weather. well saturday morning it was still cold and wet. dave and i went to town getting ready for the party, we had beer chili with all the fixing, hot dogs and brats, apples with warm carmel and hot apple cider. all warm your belly foods. we had about 26 adults and 12 kids... our house was really crowded! but it was so fun. when dave and i first got married, i came across a quote that said..."my your house always be to small to fit all your friends" and for the first time since we have lived in TN we felt that way on saturday. the lord has really brought some amazing ladies into my life and i am so thankful for their friendship. we also enjoyed having all of daves family here too. uncle steve, aunt katie and all the kids were here too for the weekend.
After we ate we opened gifts, well garret and raelyn opened gifts and then we had cake. i tried my hand at making a cake and covering it with fondant icing. my friend gave me a recipe for marshmellow fondant to make at home, so that is what i did. it was really fun to do but very labor intensive. after cake the sun started to come out and the kids were about ready to bust out of the house, so we all went outside for awhile and got some fresh air. it ended up being a beautiful day. god is good. so all in all we had a great time, i had a really fun time making the party unique and special. i made brennas little dress too. i havent sewn in awhile so i enjoyed the time i spent on that as well. if i dont do these crafty, artsy things i just start going crazy. it is built into me to do it. it is what makes me tick. anyway, we had a great day celebrating with our little lady.

dont have time

ok so i dont have time to blog right now, but wanted you to see some pictures of the party :) follow this link to see them...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56481&l=39a33&id=543192230

oops

dont know why the pics turned out like that.... but they are pictures i took of brenna for each month. the loaded strange so you have to go from right to left instead of left to right. oh well.

Brenna's ONE!

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl! i cant believe she is one. this year has gone by so fast. today brenna had her one year well check up which meant she also got 4 shots! poor girl, but she did so good, as usual. she also decided to take her first few steps. she will be walking soon that is for sure. we didnt have a party or do anything special for her today b/c we are going to have a party for her on saturday. uncle steve, aunt katie, sam, jake, and ruthie will be in town so we are going to do a little party then. i am going to try my hand at my first cake decorated with fondant! i made the fondant today b/c you can store it for awhile in the fridge. it seemed pretty easy, hopefully it will be just as easy to roll it out and lay it over the cake. we might be making an emergancy run to food city for cupcakes the day of. we will see. i promise to blog and post pics of the party. for now ckeck out how much brenna has changed....
one month
two months
three months
four months
five months
six months
seven months
eight months
nine months
ten months
eleven months
one year!

oct 20th

wow it is so hard to believe that one year ago tonight brenna was knocking at the door to come out :) no really, she was! one year ago tonight we were having dinner at Kay and Georges. Mom was in town helping me and the kids get healthy before brennas due date on the 28th. So we were all over at the Wids, i wasnt feeling great that day but really wanted to get out of the house. after dinner i was getting really tired so we werent going to stay for to long. as we were eating dinner and then even more as we were getting ready to go home, brenna was moving SO MUCH! you could see her entire body pushing and shoving around in there. i was talking to george and had to show him how much she was moving, i think it was a little to much for him :) i was so uncomfortable, but didnt even think about going into labor b/c the other two were both a week late. i slept on the couch that night b/c my back was hurting so bad i couldnt get in and out of bed. mom was going to be heading home the next afternoon. i woke up the morning of the 21 around 7 or so with contractions. not bad ones but they were pretty consistant. i didnt want to jump to any conclusions so i just kept watching the clock. around 8 or so i heard mom talking to dave about her flight so i finally spoke up about the contractions. we all kind of freaked out. nothing was packed for any of us, dave wanted to wash the truck and mow the yard! so once we got everything together we headed to the hospital and brenna was born by 11 am that morning :) i have such vivid memories of that day and the night before. what a miracle birth is!!!! God is good and blessed me with quick labors and uncomplicated deliveries. i am so thankfull for his mercy and for the gifts that our children are to us. HAPPY BIRTHDAY tomorrow my sweet Brenna! You are the sweet spot in my days.

friends forever

laugh. i joked with tara that i would just put a link here to her blog so you could find out about our few days together. so here goes...... www.2dewdrops.blogspot.com.

she is so good at blogging and keeping up with all the details. we sure did have a great time.
the guys really enjoyed there time together playing cowboys and indians..... that is the big boys i am talking about.

and tara and i had a great time shopping one afternoon and doing a craft project.

then at night we all enjoyed playing games and eating junkfood until late. we sure enjoyed our time together and miss you even more the more time we get to spend together. i love how the Lord has kept our friendship so strong through all these years. I am so thankful and blessed by it.

Thanks

Thanks again Mrs. Gunther for helping me upload my header! you are so sweet. it makes me happy when i see it :)

T & A

wow, it has been a fast and slow week. it is weird how time can feel like it goes both fast and slow.... anyways, on monday garret had his tonsils and adenoids removed. he has had a hard time breathing for a couple of years now. we had noticed that he always breathed through his mouth and not his nose. when we asked him if he could close his mouth and breath is was so hard for him. because dave had always had problems breathing was wanted to make sure we got it checked out early and take care of anything this if there was a problem. so we were referred to an ENT. he had his appointment with the same set of doctors that did daves surgery. she scoped his nose and found his adenoids were HUGE and suggested we get his tonsils and adenoids removed. i knew this would probably be the case but it broke my heart to know that he would need surgery. she walked us down the hall to the lady that made the appointments for the surgeries. as we walked down the hall, dave and i discussed doing it the first week of November. when we got into her office, she said how does Oct 13th sound? (a week after the initial appointment) i freaked out! i felt like i didn't have anytime to process everything. we talked about changing the date but knew that the sooner we got it done the better he would feel.

so monday morning we got up at 6 and went over to the hospital. he was such a trooper. it helped a lot that there was a tv right in front of his face with a remote attached to his bed. he got in his little robe with teddy bears and balls and sat up in that bed like a big guy. they took him in for surgery at 8 am. he was quiet but never shed a tear as they took him down the hall. i fell apart of course. the surgery only lasted 30 minutes. the doctor came in and talked to us right after she was done and said everything went really well. we waited for another 30 minutes or so while garret was in recovery. they told us they usually wake up rowdy and freaked out so not to be alarmed. when he got back to us he was so upset. he was in a lot of pain and i think pretty scared. b/c he was so upset he was coughing a lot which made his throat hurt more which made him more upset. it was so hard to see him in pain! i had to go and sit in the bathroom while dave got him calmed down. he did finally get calmed down and everything was ok. they actually let us go home at 11:30 that same morning! crazy! i was glad to have him home, but it seemed so early.

the next couple of days were good and bad. he did pretty good throughout the day. he was on pain meds every 4 hours. the nights were really tough. dave and i took turns sleeping with him so one of us at least got a good nights sleep every other night. last night was the best night so far and today has been the best day so far. he went almost 6 hours today before needing some medicine for the pain. he really is a trooper. he was a bear at night when we would try to give him the medicine. he would get nasty and mean but i think he was mostly delirious. we are so proud of him and pray that all this will help him with his breathing so much. i think it will help in all areas. we are planning on him going back to school on Monday. we will see how he does over the weekend.